Striving for Presence on a Hospital Ward: Phenomenology and Re-Embodiment for a Nurse-Operated Telepresence Robot

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenology of nursing care delivered through Välkky, a full-body teleoperated humanoid robot trialed in a Finnish hospital ward in 2023. Bringing science and technology studies into dialogue with phenomenology, we analyze qualitative data from observations, focus groups, and interviews with nurse-operators, managers, roboticists, and one patient involved in the pilot. We argue that Välkky's deployment constituted a “robot drama” in which the frictions between robotic imaginaries and situated clinical practice produced “infrastructural inversions,” making visible normally tacit dimensions of nursing care. To conceptualize these dimensions, we develop the notion of “experiential care infrastructures”: the embodied, affective, and relational conditions that underpin care but can be overlooked in task-based approaches to robot design. Our analysis shows that Välkky afforded limited experiences of telepresence, and that nurses found the technology to interrupt rather than enable caring relations. We conclude that the design and deployment of telepresence robots in healthcare settings must attend to experiential infrastructures that make ethical and relational care possible.